I've just spent some time going through some of the links to for this "thing," and have explained tagging (probably not quite correctly), to a co-worker who is not participating in the 23 Things program, as, "It's subject headings, but you can make them up instead of looking in Sears List of Subject Headings." The advantage being that as everyone out there adds what they think of as appropriate tags, others see those tags and use them too, resulting in popularly created tags that make more sense to more people, and are more intuitive and easier to use, than some of the old subject headings found on heh, heh, library catalog cards, or even in today's telephone book yellow pages. Wasn't it Sandy Berman who kept trying to reform antiquated subject headings? The group (non) effort of tagging would seem to be more effective than a single voice in the library wilderness.
One writer describes tags as paving the routes people walk on, rather than making sidewalks and expecting people to walk there. We've all seen those dirt trail shortcuts across expanses of grass, and in fact I remember a geography professor many years ago pointing out that "waiting a while, and then paving where people walk" would be far more effective than pouring unused sidewalks and endlessly re-sodding the muddy paths that were a permanent feature of campus landscaping... he was right about that.
As in other goodies I've explored in this progam, my feeling is, how nifty; though perhaps more useful to those engaged in active research, blogging, etc., than I am at this time.
Oh my gosh, I had to go back and edit this post because I forgot to tag it! And Ellen had just recently sent out that message that few of us were adding tags to our posts, so I should have remembered!
"Use is second nature," as they say; I'm still not used to all this stuff. And I still don't get that silly "tagging" game that is like a digital chain letter, but I never appreciated chain letters, either.
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